Nice detailing Steve! Looking better than new!

 

That is what I had hoped for all along, and after sandblasting I just POR15'ed everything. I'm now taking the time to clean everything up again and repaint, pulling the parts off that I had left on and clean up under them, and redo everything one piece at a time and reassemble. I suppose that I am only at this stage because I don't have an engine.

 

The grommets are for the AC condenser. I thin k your springs will be fine. My shortened ones are the only ones I've seen not bend. The are quite a bit shorter than stock when you look at them side by side. I don't even have to force them in. Simply place them in the top and jack up the lower.

 

I'm sure once the car is together the springs will be coming out again for trimming to get the height right. Probably a few times, I'd rather not cut them too short.

 

Didn't get a lot done tonight, it was just too hot, I had an AC window unit in the garage, turned it on after work today and it died... That sucks. 100 degrees today too.

Basically all I accomplished was that I pulled the 4 rubber isolation mounts for the AC condenser on the core support and put them aside. And on the parts car, it was really hard getting the trim off of the back window, someone had literally LOADED the whole channel with caulk or something and it was in the grooves of the trim and everything. So today I trimmed all of the excess off the top of the glass, then trimmed against the glass and around by the metal edge. Before I was even done with one side the window moved, cleaning all the way around it I can almost get it out, I'll need help with a wire and finish along the top edge some.

 

So it would appear that my engine is going to be a bit longer yet, which leaves me some time to get something else done that would have driven me insane. The parts car had new ball joints, and pressed in bushings on the upper and lower control arms, I'll be swapping them over too. The springs also look like they are new, I'll be hanging on to them, just in case the ones I have don't work out, which are new too, they just seem awful beefy. Another awesome thing I did not notice, I pulled the shocks off... NEW! That is the best parts car I could ever ask for. I'm pulling the ball joints out, cleaning the control arms up and I'm going to detail everything. I'm imagining that I will be at this until next weekend by the time I get both suspensions swapped around and put back together.

 

Not gonna be much left of the donor car when your's is done!

 

I am going to attempt to keep the parts car mobile at least, I'm not going to the trouble of making it road safe though by putting pins in it. I would ideally like to get it to a point where I can just part it out whatever is left.

I hit the garage first thing this morning for a few hours. I managed to get the control arms swapped over after cleaning everything up yesterday and painting them. I had to remove the entire centerlink and tie rods again too. Also while it was off I noticed that the rear sway bar mount bolt was loose, it doesn't look like there is anything threaded to get in there so I put a nut inside and tightened it up against that, much better now. I also tossed my old stuff back on the parts car, along with an old set of springs I have here. The springs that were on the parts car look new, I'll just sit on those for a while. Here is where I am.











Here is the parts car.

 

Do the coils fit better now Steve?

 

This side seemed fine before and after. The passenger side was messed up, I'm doing it next. We'll see. QA1's are looking better and better, this is the third time putting the springs in. I'll be messing still to get the height where I want it.